the hum / By Bob Doran

Hippie/Punk Mumbo Jumbo

Kimya Dawson loves you. Plus: Starship history and MMW keeping it real

(Nov. 13, 2008)  Anti-folk singer Kimya Dawson seems an unlikely superstar. I’m sure she’d blanch at the suggestion that she’s a star of any sort, but the truth is her sweet little lo-fi love songs set the tone for the movie Juno, filling it with a simple honesty that helped turn it into a surprise hit, thus thrusting Kimya into the spotlight. If not for the fact that the songs were pulled from previously recorded work and not written just for the film, she probably would have received a “Best Song” Oscar. The Juno soundtrack album, which mixes Kimya’s work with indie rock classics, shot up the Billboard Top 200 chart when it was released earlier this year, hitting No. 1 and going gold.

Did all this go to her head? No. She was busy up in Olympia raising her baby daughter Panda, who’s going on 2 1/2 at this point. Appropriately, the latest album from Kimya the Mom is a collection of cute (but rude) kids songs titled Alphabutt. (Note: Not all the songs are strictly for kids. “Sunbeams And Some Beans” addresses serious issues, like food politics.)

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Check the artist’s LiveJournal, “Kimya Loves You,” and you’ll find her thoughts on corporate culture and bringing about change. “We need to work from the ground up. All the time,” she writes. “We need to take the power away from the big corporations by refusing to support them, and give power back to communities by supporting local business and eating and shopping locally. We need to fight for social justice and fight for environmental protection and fight for health care reform and fight for tax reform. But we also need to just live … There is the potential for living an extremely rich life when we stop believing the lies that we have to have tons of money and tons of crap to do so.” After railing against the corporations that feed us “tons of crap,” she suggests shopping at the farmers’ market as at least a partial alternative.

“It’s about community and supporting and creating the societies we want to live in,” she continues. “And not just waiting around for someone to make life better. We can take care of each other and help make life better. Another good thing about pulling back from that [corporate] world is not getting caught up on how you should look and feel and be. You can just like yourself. Hippie/punk mumbo jumbo? Perhaps, but it’s my mumbo jumbo and I love my community and I have known other good communities and I have seen it work. The whole people knowing each other and taking care of each other stuff. It’s pretty magical.”

Did I mention that on Kimya’s most recent tour, earlier this year, her Arcata show was in someone’s living room? This time around she’s gone big time, playing Saturday night at the Van Duzer Theatre. Expect something pretty magical.

Go global Thursday at Humboldt Brews with Humboldt Afro-rock/funk/hip-hoppers WoMama and Antioquia, a worldbeat band from S.F. that adds AfroColombian rhythms and reggae to the mix. Even more global: Opa Cupa, a Gypsy/Balkan band from Italy on tour with Fishtank Ensemble fiddler Fabrice Martinez and Slavic Soul Party vocalist Eva Primack, playing at Muddy’s Hot Cup Thursday evening.

At the Boiler Room Thursday: Bumtech, the latest Portland band to hit Humboldt. This one’s a duo with Jonn Walterscheid on guitar and Sharon Schloss on bass and keys; beats come from a laptop. The music? “A combination of classic rock-type harmonies and guitar and bass, mixed with New Wave-inspired drum machine and keyboards,” says Jonn. The name? “The initial idea was it’s a consulting firm for slacking off. Sometimes I think of the ‘Bum’ as the human-slacker side of us, mixed with ‘Tech,’ the electronic, maybe more motivated side.”

Jammin’ jazz guitarist Will Bernard is at the Red Fox that night (Thursday) with his band. Friday the Fox has a mess of hip hop including Oh No (Madlib’s little brother) and Sub/Sab. Saturday, get seriously funky with Bernie Worrell and the WOO Warriors, led by the Parliament-Funkadelic keyboard wiz who also played with Talking Heads.

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